


The Ugly Duckling

by earthbellamy (samssalvation)



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Adorable, Bellarke, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Headcanon, Season 1, Unrequited Crush
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-03
Updated: 2015-02-03
Packaged: 2018-03-10 06:41:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3280502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/samssalvation/pseuds/earthbellamy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bellamy Blake was never very good at hide and seek.</p><p>Then again, he'd never really had to be before Clarke decided that he really needed a haircut.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Ugly Duckling

**Author's Note:**

> this is based on a little headcanon my sister and I came up with the other day

Bellamy was never very good at hide and seek.

In all fairness, he'd never really had to be. The only person he would have ever had to play it with was probably the best hider in existence, seeing as she'd done it professionally for sixteen years. The opportunity to practice hadn't come around all that often. Still, it meant that he was severely disadvantaged at the present, to the apparent amusement of everyone at camp.

It was the last week of the month. The day was beautiful; every single person was busy doing something, either in the drop ship or around the camp - in short, everything was running smoothly. Bellamy should have been consulting with the people on guard duty or checking in on the sprained ankle on one of the trackers, or at least doing something to put the day to good use.

Instead, he was hiding.

He crouched behind one of the tents, taking a quick peek at the sky to check the sun's position through the trees. It was around three in the afternoon, which meant that he had been on the move constantly around camp for about ten hours. This was getting ridiculous. Maybe he should just give it up and admit to - 

"Bellamy!"

His head snapped up as he scrambled upright, brushing off his clothes as if he had only been resting there for a second. He shouldn't have bothered; it was only Miller, doing a very poor job of holding back a grin.

"Hey, uh, Clarke's looking for you," Miller said casually, as though it wasn't already widespread knowledge. "She seems to be under the impression that you're avoiding her."

Bellamy forced a laugh. "Avoiding her? Tell the princess that there's a little thing called 'work' that I have to get back to, and if she has any more paranoid theories, she can run them by Monty first."

Miller looked from Bellamy to the tent he'd been lurking behind. "Oh, yeah, tent repairs are serious business."

"Hmm?"

Miller gestured to the tent. The grin was now creeping onto his face, like he'd given up on pretenses in that area. "Well, why else would you be cowering behind a tent? If you're not avoiding Clarke, that is."

"I'm not," Bellamy said, perhaps a little too quickly to be believable under normal circumstances. Then again, these were not normal circumstances, and Miller wouldn't have believed him if he'd actually been stitching the tent up as they spoke.

"Exactly," Miller answered. "You're not."

A short, awkward silence fell between them as Miller eyed Bellamy expectantly. Bellamy didn't know whether to dismiss him and find a new hiding spot, or actually start in on those repairs. Of course, he was terrible with needle and thread, but he'd make do. Maybe there would be a big tent-repairing emergency that would require his immediate and undivided attention for the rest of the day. Maybe something would catch fire. Maybe  _he_  could catch fire, and then -

Miller cleared his throat and ducked his head in deference to Bellamy. "I'll let you get back to those tent repairs, then."

Bellamy nodded, but just as Miller started to walk away, he started forward and said hurriedly, "But don't let anyone know I'm here. I . . . I might be moving around as the day goes on. You know, monitoring . . . things. Watching people."

"And here I was thinking you were going to say something crazy." Miller gave his commander a surprisingly straight look, despite having been unable to contain a smirk half a minute ago. "I'll just pass on the message that you're too busy stalking everyone but Clarke to stop by."

"Stalking is a bit of a strong word, don't you think?" Bellamy protested, but Miller was already around the corner of the tent.

Bellamy shifted on the spot, wondering just what he should do next. He had managed to dodge Clarke for the majority of the day (except for a close call around noon when he'd accidentally walked too close to the fire-pit and she'd caught sight of him from the drop ship ramp), but he was also very aware of how this was only a temporary solution. If Clarke didn't get to him today, she would be back again tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after that . . .

Bellamy shook his head to clear his thoughts. He would just focus on today. Point A to Point B. He could do that, couldn't he?

Unfortunately, Point B was a lot closer than expected: he turned on his heel and ran directly into Clarke.

"Everyone says you're avoiding me," she said, diving right into the conversation without so much as a hello. "Are you?"

Bellamy stared at her for a long moment before giving her a look he hoped said  _as if_ _._ "I'm not that immature, Princess. I've just been busy - "

" - around camp," she finished. Her expression was unreadable, as always. "Yeah, that's what everyone keeps telling me."

"You just said they were all telling you I was avoiding you." At that, Clarke gave him such a look that he immediately backtracked. "But you were doing it for effect, obviously, so forget I said that."

Clarke glared at him for a second before reaching up her hand and running it through his hair. Her fingers closed so she could thread it through them to judge its length. Bellamy tried not to lean into the touch.

Clarke made an impatient sound in her throat. "I told you it was getting long two days ago. Did you completely miss the hint that it's time for a cut?"

"I must have," Bellamy said stiffly. "But maybe I want to keep it long for a bit."

Clarke's eyebrows shot up. "The last time it got this long, you whined all over camp about how your hair kept getting in your eyes."

Bellamy licked his lips to buy time as he chose his words. Nothing came.

"Come on," Clarke instructed, taking him by the sleeve and tugging him along behind her. "I've done it before. I think I can manage to do it again."

She was walking right up to the drop ship with Bellamy in tow, as though she had some subconscious drive to make everyone see her chastising him. The rest of the hundred looked on, some trying to maintain serious expressions, others not even bothering to hide their laughter. They all remembered the last haircut Clarke had given Bellamy. Clearly, they were awaiting the next.

Bellamy wasn't so enthusiastic. He remembered the haircut better than anybody - he'd had to wear it. He ran his hand absently over his curls, wishing them a silent goodbye. Clarke was right about how he didn't like his hair long, but she was wrong about something else: she couldn't do it again. Scratch that - she couldn't do it, period.

For three weeks as his hair grew out last time, he'd had to endure silent judgment from ninety-nine pairs of eyes. Clarke, for her part, hadn't judged him because she hadn't realized just how bad it was. One patch above his left ear was still an inch shorter than the rest of his hair, and he had only just gotten past the awkward cowlick sticking up at the back of his head in the mornings. For a while, Miller and the other guards had called him the Ugly Duckling because of the tufts of hair sticking out at right angles from his skull.

Bellamy had never been overly concerned with his appearance, but now that he was the leader, he had to put on a good image for the rest of them. And Clarke's hair-cutting skills didn't fit in that image.

But in spite of all the reasons against letting her touch his hair, there were three simple, yet very compelling reasons as to why he should.

Firstly, Clarke would probably flay him alive if he said no, and Bellamy much preferred his skin on his body. Secondly, it genuinely made Clarke happy to help out. She liked being useful. She liked cutting something other than bandages off of wounds. And when Clarke was happy, she and Bellamy really got along - which was something everyone could appreciate.

The final reason was something Bellamy didn't like to admit, even to himself. It was arguably the most convincing reason of all, however: it was the fact that when Clarke cut his hair, he could imagine, just for a second, what it would feel like if she was running her hands through his hair for a purpose other than measuring its length. Typically, it was coupled with the imagined sensation of her lips on his.

And so Bellamy didn't argue as Clarke tugged him up the ramp and into the dropship. She flung aside the parachute draped over the entrance with her free hand, while her grip with the other never faltered on his jacket sleeve. Instead of taking him over to the "medical ward" of the ship, though, she directed him towards the ladder.

"Climb," she ordered. Not seeing any other options, Bellamy did, with Clarke right behind him.

The top floor was empty of people. Bellamy took a few steps in to allow Clarke up the ladder, but didn't make move towards the stool at the center of the room.

"Why are we doing it up here this time?" he asked as she got to her feet. "The lighting's worse."

"I know, but everyone kept asking to watch for some reason, and I didn't want to screw up because they were all looking in, so I thought it would be better to do it somewhere more private." She busied herself with the small wood comb she'd chiseled for herself ages ago out of some old maple branch, and the scissors from Raven's toolkit. Without looking up, she gestured to the stool. "Sit."

Bellamy took a single deep breath to resign himself to his fate before pushing away the future weeks of embarrassment and allowing himself to enjoy the moment. He took a seat on the stool and watched Clarke's hands as they knotted a piece of stray cord she used to tie her hair back sometimes. Eventually, they moved back to the comb and scissors, and he closed his eyes as though that would help.

He tracked her footsteps as she walked around him, combing out his hair and tsking occasionally at various knots and stray twigs. The silence endured for almost a minute before Bellamy said, "Hey, Clarke, I really appre - "

"Shh," she interrupted sharply. "Do you want me to mess this up? Because I can, you know."

 _Oh, I know_ , Bellamy thought to himself, but he shut his mouth and let Clarke finish up with the comb. He got so caught up in the sensation of her fingers in his hair that he actually forgot where he was for a moment, so when Clarke said, "Open your eyes," he hadn't expected to find himself face to face with her.

She didn't seem to notice how close she was, but Bellamy was instantly aware of every part of her body and where it was in relation to his. Her fingers fiddled with the curls over his forehead, alternately flopping them up or down to check how far back she should push his bangs. The little crease that formed between her eyebrows when she was concentrating was there, and every once and a while, her mouth would quirk in distaste or satisfaction.

Meanwhile, Bellamy was trying hard to remember how to breathe.

He bit the inside of his cheek, wondering if he should speak just so that he wouldn't lean forward and kiss her. "I was going to say, I really appreciate you doing this for me, Clarke."

Her eyes slid down to his, and she smiled. "It's no problem, Bellamy."

The words hung between them for a second, hovering in the air, before Clarke reached out for the scissors and the spell of nearness was broken.

"So I was thinking of taking an inch off everywhere," she said offhandedly, like cutting that much off his head wouldn't make him look like a shaved coconut. But she seemed to be asking his opinion, so he gave it.

"Actually," Bellamy offered, "I was wondering if maybe you could take off about half of that, and instead of waiting two months for the next cut, we could do it every three or four weeks."

It also meant he would still have some hair left to salvage, with the added bonus of doing this twice as often.

Clarke contemplated Bellamy's head for a minute or so, then shrugged. "That should work. Unless you get really busy next time too."

The wry tone in her voice was unmistakable. Bellamy looked up at her, expecting her to scold or snap at him for avoiding her all day, but she didn't. There was a faint smile upon her lips.

"I know the camp gets busy, Bellamy, but you've got to take some time to take care of yourself, too," she told him, taking the conversation in the opposite direction of where he'd been sure it was heading. She smoothed her fingers over his hair, this time solely for the comforting gesture of it. "We're a team. We've got to take care of each other."

"You do enough 'taking care' for the both of us," Bellamy replied, but a warmth was rising in his chest.

Clarke gave him a look before taking her hand back and using it to pick up the comb again. She walked behind him and drew his head back to rest against her stomach as she started on his scalp. "Just shut up and let me do my job, then."

Bellamy murmured his assent, allowing his eyes to slide shut as the rise and fall of Clarke's chest lulled him into a state of calm. He finally realized how tired he was - sneaking around all day was surprisingly wearing, and the long muscles in his thighs ached from being constantly tensed and ready to move. A long, heavy breath escaped through his lips. Maybe he had been a little over the top with the whole avoidance thing, after all.

Clarke snipped her way over his head in silence. The quiet stretched on, only broken by the soft  _snick_  of the scissors as another curl fell to the burnished metal floor below. Every once in a while, her fingers would brush along his face, clearing away bits of cut hair and checking its length. They left warm tracks across Bellamy's skin.

Time fell into a lazy stream where Bellamy could sit and wonder just what it would be like if he could lie down at the end of the day and do this every night - falling asleep to the rhythm of her breaths, with the warmth of her body beside him. The spun-candy dream was soft, fragile, but it glowed in front of him like the Earth's horizon had from the Ark; somewhere painfully out of reach, but somewhere he hoped to end up eventually, too.

Then, the hands left Bellamy's head and he heard the clatter of the scissors and comb on the floor. Clarke stepped in front of him again, only this time he was prepared for her and he was only mildly startled by her closeness when he opened his eyes.

She wasn't looking at his hair now. She looked directly at him, inscrutable as she had been outside of the ship. Before Bellamy could say anything, Clarke held up a polished piece of dented chrome for him to look at his new haircut. "What do you think?"

Random tufts stuck out from the rest, like twigs sticking out of the leaves on the forest floor. The tips of his ears were hidden beneath his hair, while the ends covering his forehead had been trimmed into practical nonexistence. Running a hand over the back of his head, Bellamy felt a rough spot where Clarke had accidentally cut nearly to the skin. In brief, it was terrible.

Bellamy reached out and lowered the make-shift mirror. Clarke looked worried, but she stopped chewing her lip when the mirror came down. "Well?"

"I think it's great," Bellamy said earnestly. He debated giving her an encouraging smile, but he didn't want her to be suspicious either, so he just gave her a nod. "Sorry for pushing it off."

Clarke's expression softened as she smiled. "It's okay. Just don't do it again. I've got other things to do than run around after you all day."

Bellamy gave her another nod, this time with more finality. The feeling of her fingers running through his hair was all but faded away, and it was time to get some real work done with the daylight he had left. He got to his feet and stretched before heading over to the trap door.

Clarke cleared her throat from the floor, where she was gathering up the shorn hair. "I'm glad you weren't avoiding me," she said quietly, as though she hadn't really wanted to say it out loud.

A pang of guilt shot through Bellamy's chest. He didn't know how to reply.

Clarke went on. "When I mentioned to Miller that I wanted to give you a haircut, he looked like he was trying not to laugh, so I wondered if maybe there was something wrong with us doing this. I mean, I don't see it, but maybe they think there's . . . something going on between us?"

Bellamy's laugh came out a little on the breathless side. "No, I'm sure that's not it." He looked at the floor for a moment, then glanced back at Clarke. "Miller was just being an idiot."

She looked up at him. She had brushed all the hair into a small bag fashioned from a piece of tarp, which now rested on the floor beside her knees. "Good. Because I like doing this and I wouldn't have stopped either way."

"You like doing this?" Bellamy asked. His voice seemed to be a pitch higher than usual.

Clarke gathered up the rest of the things and got to her feet. "Yeah," she said, appearing rather unconcerned with the confession. "It's relaxing. No one's life is on the line."

Bellamy opened his mouth to say something - he didn't know exactly what - when he heard his name being called from below. Octavia. He considered not responding to her, but the, "If you don't get your ass down here right now, so help me God - " convinced him that it wouldn't be a good idea.

He gave Clarke an apologetic half-smile, then climbed down to the first floor, where Octavia was waiting for him with her arms crossed impatiently over her chest. She launched herself into the first ten seconds of a rant about the meat-curing shed before she finally registered his appearance and stopped short.

"So," she began, a grin emerging on her face. "Clarke gave you another haircut, huh?"

"Mm-hmm."

Bellamy could tell that Octavia was about to crack a joke about his new look, so he took her arm and pulled her aside, just in case Clarke could hear through the open door. "I don't want you making fun of Clarke for this. She thinks it's all right, and I'm not about to contradict her."

Octavia stared at him for a moment before shrugging her shoulders. "Fine by me - but I could fix it up for you, if you want. I always used to give you haircuts back on the Ark."

Bellamy hesitated, before nodding tentatively. Octavia turned to go, but Bellamy grabbed her sleeve and pulled her back. Under his breath, he said, "Don't make it too obvious. I don't want Clarke to find out about it."

Octavia gave her brother a knowing look, and nodded reassuringly. "Don't worry, you'll still look like the Ugly Duckling when I'm done with you."

"Thanks, O," Bellamy said. His sister spun away, having apparently forgotten entirely about the meat shed. He didn't know if there was anything that could be done to truly fix his hair, but he decided that he didn't really care. Especially not when he saw Clarke climb down the ladder with a big grin.

"What was that all about?" she asked, coming over to him. "She sounded angry."

"Something about meat," Bellamy answered, shaking it off with a wave of his hand. "She can handle it."

"But . . . ?"

Bellamy sighed and straightened his jacket. "But I should probably go after her just in case."

He started off, trying to get used to the way the wind moved his new haircut - it didn't get into his eyes, at least - when Clarke said, "I'll see you up there next month, then."

He paused at the door and looked back. She was still standing by the ladder, and her fingers were clenched around the blades of the scissors so hard her knuckles turned white. Bellamy didn't know if it was fear of rejection or something else that prompted her rushed words, but he knew exactly what sentiment drove his next.

"I wouldn't miss it for the world."

**Author's Note:**

> anyways, thanks for reading!


End file.
